M/S Angelina Lauro

Port Everglades, Florida - August 16, 1975
Throughout my 6-year career as a travel agent, I went on several cruise ships for free, including on this one, the M/S Angelina Lauro. She went on 7-day cruises from Port Everglades to San Juan (Puerto Rico), St. Thomas (Virgin Islands) and Montego Bay (Jamaica). The good news was, that being that I worked at a travel agency, it didn’t cost me anything to go on this cruise. The bad news is that the Angelina Lauro caught on fire while in port in St. Thomas on March 30, 1979, which was one of the ports that I went to during my vacation. This event took place less than four years after I went on my cruise, but for whatever reason, I didn’t actually hear about what happened until many years later. Fortunately, there were no injuries and no fatalities when she caught fire, as there was hardly anybody on board at the time. Anyway, this must not have been big news for me not to hear about it. The MS Angelina Laura was towed to Asia via the Pacific Ocean to be scrapped. Sadly, she took on water and sunk somewhere in the middle of nowhere on September 24, 1979, and took the tugboat down with her! Worse yet, her sister ship, the Achille Lauro was hijacked by heavily armed Palestinian terrorists back in October 1985. She was also destroyed by fire and sunk near Somalia! I think I’d rather fly from now on, LOL!